Linseed oil instead of eaves

I'm building a cob house in South Australia at the moment, well I am trying to. I am only 17 and all of the hoops that council are making me jump through has become too much (get this my home made ladder would not fit with the Building Code of Australia as it is 'inappropriate access to a habitable space’). So my plan of action is to fit within 'structures that do not require planning or building consent' as per the state regulation ( I originally was going to try and work within this , as I know many in the US do , but some early miss information sent me off to council ) .
To fit within this part of the legislation the building can only be 2.5m high and 3m wide ( I am going to assume this is internal measurements considering my cob walls will be 0.6m thick ) , I was originally planning on having a reciprocal roof but now I have no room for overhang so I am looking at a flat earthen roof ( on a slight angle for run off) similar to the vaulted arch video on YouTube @ 25.03

, I like the walkway around the edge with this I could grow a few things on the roof. Although I really like the reciprocal roof I am real keen for this new design .....

But the problem is that there would be no eaves as If I built them I would be outside the section in the legislation - hat and boots theory out the window -, so I was whether several coats of linseed oil would protect the cob from the driven rain - uncovered cob benches are just protected this way aren’t they

Any advice would be great

Thanks so much

Jeremy
(Also I am doing this as a school project - believe it or not - and its due in a few weeks , but dad owns a backhoe that I can use efficiently to make the cob )

Jeremy Krieg

Posts: 12

1

posted 4 years ago

Also I made a model of my house in Google SketchUp for council , Ive just uploaded it

I don't think you can do cobb without eaves. Anything that seals the cobb off enough to be water tight would be detrimental to the cobb, trapping moisture between it and the mud. Water-tightness is not a desireable trait, you want water to transfer through your finish.

I would be considering gutters built into the surface of the roof, wide enough to channel the water to one place where it can be collected and exported/stored. Truly, letting water run off your roof and hit the ground is a criminal waste! If you were able to eliminate most of the shed you would have less water running down your walls, and less of whatever type of problems you were going to face later on down the road.

In any case, if this were being done in the U.S. I would be certain that it was the floorspace of the house that was being counted, not including the porch, and NOT the footprint of the building. I can't imagine that aussies are so backward as to include non-habitable space in their building codes, but I haven't met many aussies.

If you are a desert climate, you might get away with it. Adobe from the US southwest didn't have overhangs, but they got quick rains with plenty of drying time in-between.

But most can't.

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Jeremy Krieg

Posts: 12

1

posted 4 years ago

thanks Connor , there is so way i would waste the water id like to have a green roof and i collect the run-off with some sort of gutters . I understand the water trapping concept - I Ignorantly put a concreate stucco on an earthan pizza over the year before last - but wouldnt linseed oil be a bit different considering people use it all the time for earthan floors and benches?

Scott , our climate isnt realy that dry - although we have droughts often -

Check the regulations (discretely) to see if eaves are included in the size restrictions (and verify if the size restriction is for internal or external measurements). When I did my addition (in the US), the only consideration regarding the eaves was where they came close to the property line setbacks. The eaves were not counted toward total square footage.

Since you need to finish something for a grade, you might want to put up a simple shed to get that out of the way. You can always make adjustments later.

Here in the states they always consider the foot print of the dwelling/structure, outside wall to outside wall for figuring your land/school taxes -
this means that the guy with 8'' insulation in his exterior walls is going to be penalized every tax day over the guy with 4'' insulation ! CHEERS !!

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Jeremy Krieg

Posts: 12

1

posted 4 years ago

The regulations state

has no span exceeding 3 meters, and no part of the building being
higher than 2.5 meters above the natural surface of the ground;

they don’t specifically mention eaves but wouldn’t it be included as a total span from one eave to the other eave .
I've had enough with stupid council the hand sculpted house said to avoid at all costs I should have never mentioned it to them

Allen what do you mean about the insulation , the outbuilding is on my parents land

thanks so much everyone

Jeremy

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